– The San Francisco Call, San Francisco, CA, “The Spring Exhibition of New York Pictures at the Academy and the Society of American Artists“, Sunday, May 17, 1896, first edition, page 18, illustrated: B&W…”The portrait by Emil Carlsen is that of a young woman in a yellowish brown waist and a black skirt. She rests one hand on a table with a blue cloth. An inkwell breaks its flat surface. The other hand hangs over the back of her chair. In the background-that large, flat empty background Mr. Carlsen loves to paint because truly so few can paint it-is the drawing of a column that is not part of a Greek temple, but simply an accident of Mr. Carlsen’s immense, bare studio which he has used to balance his composition.

The portrait-outside of the distraction of color which Mr. Carlsen never fails to render-has a disctinction of character in which he is not always successful. The head is that of a clear-eyed, self-reliant, determined American woman, drawn as Manet would draw it-with very few colors, very flat surfaces, all the finer modeling in the edges between the light and shadow, the brow hard, the eyes set well in the head, the nose and chin drawn with firm but delicate touches.”…